The Phosphor Touch Time looks and feels like a smartwatch, but it only offers basic functionality at a smartwatch price.

Fancy a touch-screen watch, but don't want all the hassles of a connected smartwatch? Yeah, me neither, but the folks at Phosphor are betting someone out there does. The Phosphor Touch Time is being touted as a "next generation digital watch," but that's a bit misleading. This is more or less a touch-screen extension of the Casio Databank calculator watch idea, offering basic functionality and customization features that pale in comparison to real smartwatches like our Editors' Choice, the Pebble Steel. All that wouldn't be so bad if the Phosphor Touch Time wasn't priced like a real smartwatch—at $159, it's just too expensive for such basic functionality.

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Design and DisplayI like the Phosphor Touch Time's minimalist looks and sturdy brushed steel case—it feels more refined and finished than the original Pebble, a fellow Kickstarter project. The watch case is a bit large and thick for my taste, though, measuring 1.88 by 1.3 by 0.5 inches (HWD). There's a circular hump on the back that twists off to reveal a user-replaceable CR250 coin-cell battery, which Phosphor rates at up to one year of use. You'll never need to recharge the Touch Time, which is an advantage over smartwatches like the Pebble, which typically need to be charged every few days. Phosphor sells the Touch Time with silicone bands in orange, blue, pink, black, and white for $159 or with stainless steel bands in silver and black for $199.

The solid glass lens covers the 1.5-inch, 144-by-168-pixel LCD. It's always on, but you have to activate the backlighting manually by double tapping the capacitive circle icon below the display. I would have preferred to see motion activated backlighting like on the Pebble. The display handles bright light about as well as the Pebble, but the glass lens is a bit more reflective. It's pretty difficult to read under dim lighting without activating the backlight. There are no other buttons on the Touch Time—simple swipes and taps on the capacitive glass display handle all navigation.

Using the Touch TimeThe Touch Time's capacitive display locks after a few seconds of inactivity. To get started, you'll have to hold a finger down on the capacitive circle button, then wait for an unlock slider to appear onscreen. Then you just swipe your finger up to unlock the device and begin interacting with the UI. I found that swipe input was pretty laggy and inconsistent—for the best results, make sure to swipe slowly and deliberately—which isn't all that intuitive coming from responsive smartphone touch screens. Swiping up or down on the main clock lets you choose between the seven pre-loaded watch faces. Swiping left or right brings you to the apps, while swiping to the left will return to the home page after you enter an app.

There's no connectivity, but there are a few "apps" pre-installed on the Touch Time. These include rudimentary calendar, alarm, stopwatch, world time, calendar, reminders, and lunar phase apps, all of which do exactly what you'd expect. The calendar app only shows the days of the month and week, without any option for adding upcoming events. The alarm app can store up to six different alarms, but you can't specify repeating alarms for certain days of the week. That's a pretty critical feature I've become dependent on with the alarm built into my smartphone. The calculator app splits the number pad and arithmetic functions into two pages, which are annoying to swipe between. The reminder app is pretty strange: It lets you set a reminder for a specified date, but only gives you symbols to choose from to distinguish between reminders. You also don't get an alarm chime—instead, the symbol you chose appears in the top right corner of the display. To be completely honest, with the exception of the alarm and stopwatch apps, none of the included features here are very useful.

ConclusionsThe Touch Time is not a smartwatch, and Phosphor itself acknowledges as much. But the Touch Time is riding on the momentum of the smartwatch movement, whether the company intended to or not, and that makes it feel somewhat deceptive. Functionality and customizability are severely limited compared with an option like the Pebble, and the Touch Time is actually $10 more expensive at $160. Granted, the Touch Time feels like a more premium device than the Pebble, but it's also thicker and has a smaller screen. If all you want is a handful of swappable watch faces and basic calendar and calculator functions, the Touch Time might suffice, but if you're expecting a real smartwatch, look elsewhere.

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About the Author

Before joining the consumer electronics team at PCMag, Eugene worked at local news station NY1 doing everything from camera work to writing scripts. He grew up in Montclair, New Jersey and graduated from the University of Virginia in 2010. Outside of work Eugene enjoys TV, loud music, and making generally healthy and responsible life choices.

Phosphor Touch Time

Phosphor Touch Time

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